Pub rock has not always been the domain of third-tier musicians pandering to the ''play something we know'' crowd. For a good chunk of the '70s, a clutch of hard-rocking UK bands kept alive the flame ignited by the Rolling Stones, broadening the language of rhythm and blues.
Dr Feelgood hailed from Canvey Island, Essex, a once popular resort town built on reclaimed marshland and surrounded by concrete walls that usually (but not always) held the North Sea at bay.
From the band's formation in 1971, it carried with it something of Canvey's gritty determination to box on against forces that might overwhelm less robust entities.
Listening to the band's debut album Down By The Jetty, you might think the psychedelic and art-rock movements never happened.
At a time when glam rock was ramping up the glitz, Dr Feelgood was getting on with the business of writing songs about bad women and good times, its primary focus on filling the dance-floors of the clubs and pubs of its working-class stomping ground.
Key figures Lee Brilleaux (vocals/harmonica) and Wilko Johnson (guitar/vocals) stamp their personalities on the album in complementary fashion, Brilleaux belting out his barrelhouse blues with no fuss or frills, Johnson chopping chords and bending notes with a percussive style that would become his signature.
On stage, the pair was equally well-matched, Brilleaux scowling and sweating in his shabby-chic suits and Johnson propelled around by some unseen hand in a frenetic robot-chicken strut.
This bristling energy is tangible on an album that mixes covers of Bony Moronie, Tequila and Boom Boom, with such early Feelgood classics as She Does It Right, Roxette and All Through The City.
Despite the pervading influence of Howlin' Wolf et al, these lads place their music in the heart of their hometown, exposing it to the bite of the sea breeze, the smoke from the oil refineries and the bouquet of the local ale.
